Getting to the rail in GA.

schaefferlax

Lost In Ohio said:

Marieow said:

PJ_Soul said:

I will say that, while there are plenty of great people in GA lines, I have also witnessed the very WORST of fandom in them as well. I couldn't stay in a GA line longer than an hour even if I wanted to, because there is a select group of highly vocal, bossy, entitled and aggressive people who appoint themselves the Masters of PJ GA and they make it completely unbearable for me, lol.

That is definitely why I feel a little nervous about waiting in line, the entitled people who are oddly competitive, cold, and weird about this kind of shit. I usually go to metal shows, so I'm used to the pushing and pulling, but it's all in good fun, and people are rarely territorial about where they are standing in GA. It's a whole different thing with some PJ fans.  It's fine, I'll play along. I just want to have a rail moment. I've been 2 or 3 people deep, and of course that's fun. I'm excited to meet new people. 

Honestly, I think the 3-4 days thing is somewhat overblown and partially due to the one guy in Chicago who made it into the Let's Play Two movie.

It definitely depends on city. If it's night 2, there will absolutely be people who skip out on the last song of night 1 just to go back to the line.

If it's a random one-off show in Cleveland or Cincinnati on a Tuesday night, will there be people in line on Saturday? Probably not. Will there be a line at 9am on show day? Absolutely. If you get in line in those cities at 8am on show day, you probably won't get rail front and center, but maybe off to the side or 2-3 back in the middle.

Indy may not have an overnight line due to the Smashing Pumpkins there the night before.

For the vast majority of shows, if you're there by 5-6am, you'll almost certainly get rail right in the middle. As long as your breaks are quick and rare, you'll be fine. Visit the bathroom at a nearby fast food place, get your food "to go" and eat it back in line. You can also utilize services like DoorDash or UberEATS to further minimize time spent out of line.

...and when the doors open, walk in an orderly fashion.

Going for rail at Wrigley N2 this year. Thank you for posting this. 6am is probably all I’m willing to do so I hope it’s enough 

Planet of Sound

Tempting to try at least once, but not sure I’d last in a queue the whole day.  Was 2nd row in Marseille 2006 GA after queuing from around lunchtime, may be the closest I’ll ever be.

schaefferlax

Planet of Sound said:

Tempting to try at least once, but not sure I’d last in a queue the whole day.  Was 2nd row in Marseille 2006 GA after queuing from around lunchtime, may be the closest I’ll ever be.

I slept on it and don't think I'm willing to do this either. Thinking back to Hampton 2016, I lined up at 2 or 3pm and was 5 people back dead center. Good enough

bootleg

PJ_Soul said:

I will say that, while there are plenty of great people in GA lines, I have also witnessed the very WORST of fandom in them as well. I couldn't stay in a GA line longer than an hour even if I wanted to, because there is a select group of highly vocal, bossy, entitled and aggressive people who appoint themselves the Masters of PJ GA and they make it completely unbearable for me, lol.

Ugh these people are the worst of fandom.  The original Wrigley show in 2013 had a lot of it.  I got to the venue early enough to scope things out around 12 or 1pm.  Walked around the entire stadium to try to figure out where GA was lining up.  No one was lined up anywhere.  It was hot so walked around some more went to get a bite to eat came back around 3 and all the sudden there’s like 500 people in line.  They all had numbers on theirs hands said they were all there earlier and just decided as a group they would all go hang out for the day and come back at a certain time and line up based on their numbers like it was some kind of official list.  I can understand if you put in the time all day but if you all leave you can’t just come back whenever you feel like it. The thing is Wrigley has multiple entrances and most of those had no one waiting in them so I just camped out at the other entrance with no one in front of me.  That GA group did manage to convince a security guard to let them in earlier but I want to say they only got a few minutes head start and since they only had one or two people at that gate to let people in, anyone past about the first 50 or so got in later than I did at the main gate.  Ended up in a good spot about 3 rows back between Ed and Mike but then the shit show where the weather delay forced everyone off the field.

Once they let everyone back in it was a bit of chaos.  I was able to get back to roughly the same spot if not even a little closer but all the numbered hand people were trying to convince 2000 other people that they had a right to their original position.  People got aggressive.  Bigger guys were shoving their way around.  It was all pretty gross.

I do wish they would put in some kind of system like the random numbered bracelets or something.  I’m not a big fan of wasting time in lines all day.  Especially if I’m visiting a city I’ve never been to.  I do like the experience of being up close, it just feels like your in it, but a 3-4 row improvement is probably not worth 8 hours in a line.

covered in bliss

We left home at 3pm for the Nashville show & live an hour away. Parked, tracked down the people we wanted to see & got in line. Wound up on the rail in front of Mike next to people that had waited in line since 6am. A lot of people go straight to merch booth & not the pit. There were speakers right in front of us but Mike spent plenty of time giving things to the Brazilian next to us lol. Bring ear protection! Good luck! 

xavier mcdaniel

I did it for the first time last year at St. Paul for night one and while I was skeptical going in, I enjoyed the experience of interacting and becoming friends with the various people I was on the line with.

lastexitlondon

Making friends is one of the best parts of queuing 

pdalowsky

The european shows are generally dominated by the same crowd who camp out from show to show. 

Getting there in the early hours of the morning will generally get you second row (about 8-10am) and to be honest the crowd then doesnt build behind you until the early afternoon. 

I was surprised in NY - we ambled up around 4-5pm before doors opened and we were dead centre 3 back from the rail in front of Ed. Great spot. I thought it would be carnage

Get_Right

josevolution said:

Youngin’s can have the rail! These days I prefer the bar rail 😉

I am with you. Give me reserved on the side or find a friend with a good 10C number at a reserved show  if you want to be close and you are over 50.